Style combination · Pairs well

Polish Poster School × Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster

Both are state-supported cultural poster schools in which the artist letters the title by hand; pair a Polish visual metaphor with Puerto Rican calligraphy that becomes part of the figure.

From the research on Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster (DIVEDCO & ICP)

Mix them and make something Polish Poster School Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Polish Poster School, their arrangement from Polish Poster School, the finish from Polish Poster School. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Polish Poster School Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster (DIVEDCO & ICP)

Type from Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster: Hand-lettering
Brush & pen calligraphy
Colour from Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster: Flat fields
Dark ground
Form from Polish Poster School: Distortion & exaggeration
Stylised figuration
Composition from Polish Poster School: Single focal point
Isolated object
Surface from Polish Poster School: Painterly brushwork

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster

Wow

Yatra One, standing in for Bold sans and slab-like display capitals cut for DIVEDCO film titles ('DOÑA JULIA', 'NENEN DE LA RUTA MORA'), with small sans capitals for the credit line 'Película hecha en Puerto Rico por la División de Educación de la Comunidad'

Text · Polish Poster School

A painterly, metaphorical poster culture that flourished in communist Poland, chiefly for film, theatre, opera and circus. Working for state publishers, free of commercial pressure but under censorship, designers such as Henryk Tomaszewski, Jan Lenica and Roman Cieślewicz replaced star photographs with a single witty or unsettling visual idea, painted or collaged by hand and lettered in the artist's own handwriting.

Archivo; Polish Poster School used Henryk Tomaszewski's casual handwritten capitals and Brush- and crayon-drawn title lettering

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster, with a counter-accent from Polish Poster School. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Polish Poster School Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster (DIVEDCO & ICP)

#efe8d8 ground · 36%
#1b1a19 ink · 14%
#f1bf2e accent · 18%
#d4352b accent · 14%
#d6427e accent · 10%
#1f6a55 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #efe8d8;
  --ink: #1b1a19;
  --accent-1: #f1bf2e;
  --accent-2: #d4352b;
  --accent-3: #d6427e;
  --accent-4: #1f6a55;
  --font-display: "Yatra One", cursive;
  --font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster (DIVEDCO & ICP): The posters drew on living Puerto Rican traditions, among them the vejigante masks of the Afro-Puerto Rican fiestas de Santiago Apóstol in Loíza and the carved santos of household devotion, and many were public-education posters of the Muñoz Marín government; give these motifs their community and devotional context rather than using them as generic 'tropical' decoration, do not pass pastiches off as DIVEDCO or Instituto originals, and credit or commission Puerto Rican printmakers rather than lifting the look. The Instituto was founded in 1955 amid nationalist sentiment to foster a Puerto Rican identity distinct from that of the United States, and its Spanish hand lettering has been read as a passive resistance to US cultural influence, while DIVEDCO was a product of the governing Popular Democratic Party and its films, which these posters announced, often read as propaganda for it; keep the Spanish and the island subjects, and do not re-letter the look in English for US brands or reduce it to generic 'Latin' flavour.